


and you will drown in the wake of the things you lost

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Drowning, F/M, Mermaid Joan AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sailor Owen AU, Sailor Wadsworth, mermaid au, missing mark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: She waits until he stops coughing, waits until he lies on his back and draws a few raspy, wheezy breaths, waits until he cracks his eyes open—And pulls one of her shell knives from her bag and holds it to his throat.“What—““You’re going to help me find my brother.”
Relationships: Joan Bright/Owen Thompson | Agent Green
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8
Collections: BrightGreen Fanfics





	and you will drown in the wake of the things you lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhatsATerrarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatsATerrarium/gifts).



> fic title from notos by the oh hellos

The storm raging overhead is muffled by the ocean water surging through Owen’s ears. The chaos, the rain, the thunder, the shouting of his crewmen— it all disappears as he breaks the surface of the water and sinks. The salt stings his eyes, burns against his cracked lips, dances on his tongue.

His head hurts. Why does his head hurt?

There’s blood in the water.

His lungs fill with a dull ache that cuts through the haze.

The railing, he realizes dimly. He must have hit his head on it when the waves through him overboard.

It’s quiet.

It’s calm.

He lets his eyes drift shut.

And then his lungs seize, instinct takes over, and he scrambles to swim upwards, pain in his head be damned. He’s not even entirely certain which way  _ is  _ up, with how little light is making it through the storm clouds, but his limbs don’t care. They kick and wave frantically and it seems to work because his head breaks the surface for a split second and he gasps for air before a wave forces his head back underneath.

He forces his tired limbs to move again, head breaking the surface again, gasping again. Searching frantically for his ship in the distance. It’s far, but not over the horizon yet— maybe he can…

Another wave knocks him back under and he resurfaces, angles towards the ship, tries to swim towards it. Yells for help, knowing his efforts are futile— there’s no way they’d be able to hear his feeble yells over the crashing waves.

He keeps trying. He keeps trying long after the ship is nothing but a speck on the distance, being buffeted by the waves and knocked around like it’s nothing more than a rag doll rather than a multi-ton ship.

His throat burns, his lungs burn, his gasps for air become more cough than breath as he inhales the ocean spray that hits him with every roll of the waves.

He’s forced under again. He surfaces again.

His limbs ache and then burn and then go numb with the effort of swimming until he can no longer drag himself back above the surface and he hangs still in the water, trying to hold what little breath he’s managed and hoping his limbs will cooperate again.

They don’t.

His head still hurts. The water rushes into his chest as his lungs take over his brain and every cough to expel the water only draws more in. He thrashes weakly in the water.

And then the calm takes over.

He’d heard other sailors tell tales of this calm— they’d been pulled from the waves, resuscitated, brought back from the brink of death itself. The complacent haze that washed over them as the ocean took over and pulled them towards an eternal slumber, towards that great beyond. He floats, weightless, and watches the flashes of lightning illuminate the water around him, watches the last few bubbles pass his lips and float towards the surface.

He sees a flash of tan skin and a teal shimmer as his eyes slide shut and then—

Nothing.

——

As Joan watches the man’s shock of red hair feather out in the water, she considers letting him drown. She considers leaving him, turning tail as it were and swimming back home. She considers leaving his ugly human corpse to sink and bloat and rot on the ocean floor.

She does none of those things.

She instead grabs him by the shoulders, heaves him through the water, and swims as quickly as she can to where she knows the nearest shore to be.

It isn’t far, luckily, and she’s always been a fast swimmer; she dumps his limp body on the sand and tilts him onto his side and thumps his back as hard as she can.

Because while she’s been warned of the dangers of being around humans all her life— while she’s  _ experienced  _ the dangers of humans firsthand— she needs him. She needs her brother back and he’s the first humans she’s found since his capture.

So she waits.

And waits.

She considers leaving him again when a long stretch of time has passed— figures he must be dead and gone by now, figures she’ll have to wait for the next poor sap to be thrown overboard— when he convulses and hurls up mouthful after mouthful of water into the already-waterlogged sand under his prone form.

She waits until he stops coughing, waits until he lies on his back and draws a few raspy, wheezy breaths, waits until he cracks his eyes open—

And pulls one of her shell knives from her bag and holds it to his throat.

“What—“

“You’re going to help me find my brother.”


End file.
